by Lisa Wingate
“Maybe not,” I countered, but we’d trekked all over the yard using Clay’s phone to call mine, to no avail. “My iPhone loves me. It’ll find its way home.”
Blaine chuckled, the sound warm and nice, his breath forming a cloud of vapor, so that I knew he was close behind me. He took a few more steps and stood at the top of the stairs, gazing out into the night. “You ever read any of those self-help books about people who are obsessed with their gadgets?” He glanced sideways, the hazy glow from the gaslights illuminating a grin.
“I don’t have the Kindle app on my phone,” I said blandly. “I’ll have to look into that. Maybe then I can read the books.”
He laughed again, rubbing a finger alongside his nose. “I think that would defeat the purpose.”
“You could loan me your phone,” I suggested. Clay, I noticed, had been careful to take his phone away from me after the yard search. No doubt, he was afraid I’d call Uncle Herbert’s son. “I could check in at work and leave a message for my boss, at least.”
“It’s Friday,” Blaine pointed out. “Tomorrow’s the weekend.”
“He works on the weekends, believe me.” I felt Blaine’s gaze on me. I had a feeling I knew what he was thinking—that I looked like the type who spent the weekends chained to a desk.
“Anyway, I don’t have one with me.” His comment seemed to come out of the blue.
“One what?”
“A cell phone.”
An indignant cough pressed from my throat, and I gaped at him. Surely he was kidding, making an excuse not to provide me with a communications device. Maybe he really did spend his days out fishing. How could anyone do business without a cell phone, these days? “What kind of a banker doesn’t carry a cell phone?”
“This kind.” He leaned forward slightly to catch a glimpse of the moon. “When I’m off work, I’m all the way off. The mobile phone stays in the office.”
I studied his profile, trying to decide whether he was putting one over on me. “That doesn’t drive you crazy?” The few times I’d ever forgotten my phone while I was out on a date, it made me insane. All I could think about was the backlog that was probably building and the fact that if Mel called, wanting to set a meeting or to ask for some numbers, he wouldn’t be happy I was out of touch.
“Having that stupid phone going off all the time would drive me crazy,” Blaine countered. “If you don’t have it with you, you don’t have to answer it.” He turned my way, his features hidden in shadow, except for the chin with the cute little cleft in it. “You oughta try it sometime.”
“I shudder at your ridiculous logic,” I countered, and he snort-laughed. I bit back a chuckle, reminding myself that no matter how much fun he might be to trade quips with, Blaine Underhill was not my friend.
“There’s a time to work and a time to play.” He coated the words with a melodramatic tone that coaxed another laugh into my mouth. I coughed to cover it up.
“My iPhone is out there, cold and alone, and you give me platitudes.”
“I know it’s hard to continue on, considering what you’ve been through.” He patted my shoulder, and instead of sympathy, I felt electricity. “But you have to remain strong for your iPhone.”
I couldn’t help it, I chuckled in spite of myself. “That’s so not funny.”
“You laughed.”
“It was a courtesy laugh.”
Letting his head fall forward, he grinned, the light catching his face. “How about some casserole? You need your strength.”
I pushed off the porch post and took a step farther away from him, my mind clearing a bit. I couldn’t help but wonder why he was on the porch buttering me up. Come to think of it, why had he spent his whole afternoon tromping around the lawn with my crazy family, searching for Roger’s buried treasure? Surely a guy who looked like Blaine Underhill had better things to do, or perhaps a wife and kids out there, waiting for him to come home? Back in high school, there’d been no shortage of local girls looking to fill that role.
But as we started in the door, he followed amiably along, whistling under his breath, the sound filling the vestibule and the front hall, where in the past crowds of mourners had gathered, exchanging greetings in hushed tones as they filed into the chapel for final rites. Blaine’s song echoed off the paneled walls as we passed through the commercial area, where a casket stand still stood under the bay windows in Uncle Herbert’s office, and into the private quarters, which on this side of the house included a ladies’ parlor, a dining room, a den for watching television, the sun porch, and the kitchen.
All of a sudden, I recognized Blaine’s tune as a medley of common cell phone ring tones.
“Stop that,” I snapped, glancing over my shoulder at him.
He only winked, then changed to another tune. Behind me, I heard his bootheels on the wooden floors, accompanied by the haunting melody of taps.
He that will learn to pray, let him go to sea.
—George Herbert
(Left by Bradley Breal, ministry student headed for the mission field)
Chapter 8
In the morning I slept late, and by the time I woke, everyone—including Roger—had vacated the premises. On the kitchen counter of the main house, I found a vague note from my mother saying that she and the uncs had gone to Waco to pick up restaurant supplies for Catfish Charley’s and they wouldn’t be back until sometime later in the day. There was no explanation as to where Clay and Roger were, but after a sweep of the personal quarters, I pretty much concluded that I was on my own. No doubt the family had decided to avoid me as a way of putting off further conversation about signing the real-estate papers.
The note in the kitchen had been weighted down with the old milk-glass canister that had always served as Uncle Herbert’s repository for loose change and an occasional crumpled dollar bill. When we’d moved into the gardener’s cottage after my father’s death and money was tight, five- and ten-dollar bills had started appearing there—Uncle Herbert’s way of quietly making sure Clay and I had what we needed for lunches and groceries. Aunt Esther would’ve had a fit if she’d known he was funneling funds to us. She felt that my mother needed to get out of bed and get a job, or at least work cleaning Harmony House and cooking meals along with the housekeeper.
Looking at the milk-glass canister now, I remembered Ruth quietly taking money from the jar and tucking it into my palm. Sometimes I suspected that she put cash from her housekeeping salary in there, too. Mostly, I liked Ruth because no matter how angry, depressed, uncommunicative, or withdrawn I was when I came home from school, she had oatmeal-chocolate-chip cookies, or Mennonite specialties like zwieback double buns, waiting. Ruth repaired a lot of damage that way, all while washing dishes and barely raising an eyebrow. She was exactly what I needed: someone who did not feel the need to turn me into a perfect Southern lady. She quietly shook her head when I was forced to sit in with Aunt Esther’s bridge-club crowd—the theory being that social engagements and a change of wardrobe would cure whatever was wrong with me.
No matter how critical the ladies were in the parlor, or how much Aunt Esther didn’t appreciate my lack of cooperation, Ruth extended grace to me. She was willing to love the little mess that I was, rather than trying to instruct, guide, and fix me. Whenever I was finally able to escape from the parlor, I knew I’d find her in the kitchen, a baker’s apron protecting her modest flowered dress, her hair neatly plaited beneath a scarf-like head covering, her hands busy at work.
I wished Uncle Herbert were home, so I could ask him whatever happened to Ruth. She’d sent notes and care packages for a while after I’d headed off to college, but I’d moved after my freshman year in the dorm and probably never sent her the new address. Moses Lake had seemed a million miles away by then, and I wanted it to be. As much as I adored Ruth, it was easier to just leave the past behind.
Now I felt the past closing in on me again, voices whispering in the house, boards creaking and settling, a branch scratching the windows o
n the sun porch, a groaning noise from the vicinity of the front parlor and Uncle Herbert’s office, as if someone were leaning back in his old leather office chair. A bird twittered outside, and the sharp, uneven sound reminded me of the ladies in Aunt Esther’s gossip circle. I had a sense of not being alone in the house.
A shiver ran across my shoulders, convincing me that the prudent thing to do would be to borrow a few dollars from the canister, grab my laptop from the cottage, and head to the one place I’d seen in town that advertised an Internet hot spot—the combination convenience store, pizzeria, and Chinese food hut on the edge of town. It was a nice enough day for a walk, and considering that I hadn’t officially checked in at the office since I left, Mel was undoubtedly not a happy camper. Getting in contact via email and offering a few details about the lost phone would be a good way to buffer things a bit. I could spend some time taking care of whatever I could handle long-distance and lighten next week’s backlog of work.
It seemed like a good plan . . . until I actually got to the Chinese convenience store and opened my email. Backlog didn’t even begin to describe what I found. Mel was in a tailspin because Itega wanted some tweaks to the design and corresponding cost analyses, and they wanted them now. If it weren’t for the fact that it would have taken all day for me to fly home from Moses Lake, Mel would have insisted I come back right then. He wasn’t interested in hearing about lost cell phones or anything else happening in Texas. He’d called our project crew in to work, even though it was Saturday.
I spent the rest of the day talking with various team members via Skype, working like a madwoman on my laptop, transferring spreadsheets and AutoCAD files back and forth, downing egg drop soup and crab rangoons, and breaking open fortune cookies. Meanwhile, the owners of the convenience store tried to corral the gaggle of kids who were obviously accustomed to playing in the restaurant when no one was around. On some level, I knew I was imposing, but I was in work mode. The world and everyone in it was outside the bubble.
By the time we put the design changes to bed, I was exhausted both mentally and physically, my eyes were blurry and grainy, and the poor people who owned the convenience store were sweeping floors and washing pans, glancing my way and hoping I would get the hint. I thanked them profusely and made a mental note to drop by with a huge tip when I had funds of my own again. The purchase of a pack of super migraine-killing headache powders seemed like the best way to spend the rest of my canister money, for now. A massive tension headache was pounding in my brain, and all I wanted to do was find someplace quiet to lie down. I didn’t even bother to see who was at the house when I returned to Harmony Shores; I just staggered to the gardener’s cottage, took my headache medicine, fell across the bed, and closed my eyes.
Sometime after dark I snuggled under the quilt, and on Sunday morning, I woke early, with my mind squarely back in Moses Lake. Lying in bed, I made plans to dig up gardens until I’d either razed the property or unearthed my cell phone and wallet. I’d been at Harmony Shores for two days now, and I had accomplished exactly nothing—and in the meantime, I’d almost been AWOL during an important crunch time at the office. Somehow, I had to bring the Moses Lake issue to a satisfying conclusion and get back to my real life.
I’d tried applying logic and reason with Mother, Clay, the uncs, and the banker responsible for encouraging my brother’s flight of fancy. Blaine Underhill actually seemed like kind of a decent guy. He and my family were clearly on friendly terms, but how could he, as a financial professional and president of his father’s bank, possibly condone my brother’s plan, or my mother’s? Was Blaine such a nice guy that he just didn’t have the heart to point out the truth to my family?
Or was he a heartless small-town shyster?
The question chased away the morning drowsiness. This good ol’ hometown boy, help-a-buddy-out thing of Blaine’s had to be a façade, didn’t it? You couldn’t run a bank, even a little country bank, and be a pushover. Blaine was out to make money—out to win. He was, after all, the guy who’d mowed over players twice his size on the football field and given himself several concussions, because he had to win. What were the odds that he’d suddenly turned into a teddy bear? Not very good.
At the same time, another image swirled just overhead—tantalizing, like the sweet aroma of an apple-pie-scented candle. I remembered the guy who made me laugh on the porch as I mourned my iPhone, his smile flashing in the dim light, his eyes a deep, dark liquid. His laughter brushed across my ear, sending a prickle over my skin.
“All right, that’s it.” Tossing the covers aside, I swung my legs around and hit the ground running—literally. The floorboards were like ice again. If I stayed in the cottage any longer, I’d have to bring some firewood down from the woodpile at the main house. My teeth were chattering by the time I got to the bathroom, where I turned on the hot water and hopped from one foot to the other until finally the small space fogged up. My morning routine was rushed and uncomfortable, with little slices of February air sifting through the floorboards and pressing past the gaps around the narrow wood-paned window. My last pair of jeans and a blue sweater helped to cut the chill, and toasting myself with the hairdryer felt like heaven. While I was basking, I plugged the gaps around the window with crispy tissues from an ancient, yellowed box.
I finger-brushed wavy auburn curls and proceeded to the door, where my coat and my dirty, bedraggled, perpetually damp suede boots were like blocks of ice. I pulled the boots on and curled my toes inside, shivering as I started out the door and hoping that both the coffee and the heat were on up at the big house. A trio of cardinals flitted away, surprised by my passing, and a squirrel darted from the lawn, skittering up the hill ahead of me to climb an ancient live oak tree.
A flash of movement near the shore stopped me halfway across the lawn, and I turned, expecting to see Clay down there again. Instead, a tall, slim figure with dark, curly hair was just disappearing behind the corner of the barn. Blaine Underhill? What was he doing here so early in the morning . . . on Sunday? In fact, what was he doing, prowling around our barn at all?
Pulling my coat tighter around myself, I hurried back across the yard and slipped down the hill, staying close to the tree line on the way to the massive weathered-wood-and-limestone barn. When we’d lived at Harmony Shores, the barn had been my hiding place, my private cathedral. Among the narrow streams of sunlight and shade, I could lie on my back and listen to the coo of doves nesting in the rafters and pretend that the upside-down world outside didn’t exist. I felt close to my father there, as if he might suddenly walk through the door, once again a hapless teenager bringing hay to be stored for the winter.
The barn wasn’t even in use anymore. When we’d talked about the real-estate deal, Uncle Herbert had pointed out that any new owners would have to make some decisions about either repairing the barn or tearing it down. Why would Blaine Underhill be poking around the place when the morning was still frosty and cool, the winter sun just casting pink light over the hills of Chinquapin Peaks?
A hinge squealed as I reached the corner of the barn and peered through the crust of dirt and paint spatters on a wavy, plate-glass window in what had once been the tack room. Beyond the tack room doorway, Blaine was a backlit shadow in the cavernous barn aisle. Resting his hands on his hips, he looked up at the ceiling, turned in a slow circle, walked out of view.
I moved down the barn wall, peeking through knotholes and cracks in the weathered boards, trying to locate him again. Where was he? What was he doing?
A faint, metallic sound rang out—the ping of gravel bouncing off one of the canoes that Clay had left lying around. I tiptoed to the corner and peered around it but couldn’t see anything. Frost-covered grass crunched under my feet once, twice, three times, until I spotted Blaine. Rubbing his chin, he walked around the canoe, tipped it to one side, looked under it. The banker was dressed in sweats this morning—in a horrible orange color, actually—along with a ball cap and running shoes. Apparently, he was
out jogging. Jogging, and investigating my uncle’s canoes. . . .
Just as I was about to duck behind the barn again, Roger barked from somewhere in the woods. Blaine looked up, and I pretended not to have been hiding there, stalking him. “Oh, I . . . uhhh . . . didn’t know anyone was down here.”
He seemed unsurprised by my presence and not the least bit worried to have been discovered prowling the property. “Mornin’,” he said, and smiled like we were old friends. Apparently, the family phone hunt and casserole feed had convinced Blaine that he and I were on amicable terms. That was probably just as well. Best not to let him know I was trying to figure him out.
“Good morning.” I returned the smile. “Kind of early for a walk.”
He nodded toward the water, a deep blue-gray in the morning light, and as slick as glass. A flock of mallards had landed near the shore to paddle aimlessly about, oblivious to the icy chill rising off the surface. “I like to get out when it’s still quiet, before there’s anyone on the water. Kind of nice just to look at it the way God made it.”
“It’s a man-made lake,” I pointed out, and he smirked sideways at me.
“Well, now, that’s a cynical observation.” He licked his lips, worried one side between his teeth, like he was trying to make sense of me. That made two of us. I was studying him, as well. He seemed to know that but appeared comfortable with it, perhaps because we were on his turf. This was his town, after all. It always had been.
“Sorry.” The apology was hollow, really. There’s no point apologizing for who you are. “It’s my nature.”
“To be cynical?” He raised a brow.
“Analytical,” I rephrased. Analytical sounded better. Maybe practical was really the right word. “I imagine that bankers are analytical, too.” They probably don’t show up at someone’s place first thing on a frosty morning for no reason—just happening by.
He cocked his head to one side, his thick, dark lashes narrowing slightly, casting a shadow over his brown eyes, making them earthy and warm, the kind of eyes that pull you closer. “That’s not how I remember you.”
